


Boo, Forever

by bestliars



Series: spaces lived without [1]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Soul Bond, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:39:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bestliars/pseuds/bestliars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shea’s never spent much time thinking about bonds, but maybe he should have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boo, Forever

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn’t gonna do this. Really, I wasn’t, but then I asked Stellarer and she said I should. <3 So SORRY, THIS IS HER FAULT. <3
> 
> Also she betaed it.

Bonds are weird. Shea doesn't think about them a whole lot, but they're bizarre. He's in love, and he thinks it’s real, and that’s enough. Shea can't imagine having someone in his head like that. He can't imagine needing anyone so bad that the distance hurts. 

Shea doesn’t know much about bonds. There isn’t a whole lot to know. No one knows why they form, and they only tentatively understand how. There’s science that can prove a bond exists, but nothing to explain the inner workings. It has something to do with chemicals. Neural compatibility. Recessive genes. It's always been around, but the medical establishment is only beginning to get a grasp on what any of it means. 

Shea doesn't really follow it. There isn't a history of bonding in his family. If it shows up as a feature on the news he won’t change the channel, but he never paid it much attention. This may have been a mistake.

Last night Ryan said he wanted to talk, and Shea said sure, because talking is supposed to be good for healthy relationships or something. Ryan doesn’t usually want to talk, but they do try.

Shea thought this was going to be a conversation about commitment. They're both getting older — not old, but old enough to settle down. They're going to sign new contracts soon. Shea's a RFA going into the summer, and Ryan will be a free agent. It might be hard for the Preds to keep them both, but there's got to be a way they can make it work. Shea wants to stay; he thought Ryan wanted the same thing.

Only apparently Ryan is fucking bonded to Zach Parise and has been since he was a teenager. This is something Shea would have liked to know before he started thinking about the future. He’s having a hard time wrapping his head around it. Maybe he misheard.

“You’re bonded to Zach Parise?” He asks, hoping this is a really bad joke.

Ryan nods.

“Since you were sixteen.”

“Yeah,” Ryan nods, looking slightly ashamed. “You can hate me if you want.”

Shea doesn’t want to, but right now it might be his best option. They’ve known each other for years. They’ve been sleeping together for most of that. They’ve been _together _for _real_ for more than two full seasons. Through all this Ryan has been bonded to Zach Parise and hasn’t said a thing.__

__“Zach told me I should tell you before this, but I knew it would fuck everything up."_ _

__That’s so typical. Ryan doesn’t talk about shit. Shea’ll own up to not being much better, but he hasn’t been keeping any groundshaking secrets._ _

__"You should have told me,” Shea says._ _

__“I really should have. I’m sorry.” Ryan looks apologetic, he sounds all torn up._ _

__They both know any apology isn’t going to cut it._ _

__Shea is still struggling to grasp what this means. Every moment where he was alone with Ryan, they weren't really alone. Ryan is never really alone. Ryan always has Zach Parise there in his head._ _

__It feels like an invasion, like an infection, like there's something new and bad that won't go away, only apparently it's been here all along. He needs to rewrite their history with the inclusion of Parise present in Ryan’s mind._ _

__It’s never just been the two of them, not really._ _

__The next thing he needs to know is: "Why are you telling me now?"_ _

__Ryan rubs at his eyes, like he’s tired._ _

__"I'm not going to sign an extension,” Ryan says. After the last bombshell this shouldn’t be a surprise, but Shea certainly wasn’t ready for this. “I love you but—"_ _

__He finishes Ryan's sentence with the obvious truth: "But you love him more."_ _

__Ryan pauses. He closes both eyes for a split second, the first crack in his composure. Shea wonders what Parise is advising Ryan to say next._ _

__Ryan opens his eyes. They seem really green is this light. He looks Shea straight in the eye, and says, "But I can't take the distance any more. I'm tired of how being far away from Zach makes my bones ache. It makes my head sore. It just hurts. I've put up with it for a decade, I need to make it stop."_ _

__Shea doesn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t want to hear about Ryan being in pain, not when there’s nothing he can do to fix it (other than letting him go)._ _

__Ryan’s eyes seem so green, and so sad. Shea wonders if he’s going to cry. Shea isn’t sure what the _right_ emotional response to this situation is._ _

__"I don't get it," Shea says. He just...doesn’t._ _

__"You really, really don't," Ryan says._ _

__That hurts._ _

__"There's no way you could, you aren't bonded. There's nothing else like it."_ _

__Sure, that might be true, but why the hell does Ryan have to say it?_ _

__Shea never thought he was missing out by not having a bond. He had Ryan, his team, their dogs, their city. He was happy. Only Ryan was never really his, and without Ryan, the rest of it doesn’t really matter._ _

__Ryan is bonded to Zach fucking Parise._ _

__"Is it like being in love?” Shea asks._ _

__"I don't know."_ _

__"Are you saying you don't love me?"_ _

__"I'm saying they aren't the same. I love Zach, but it's not the same as loving you."_ _

__"Is it like fucking?" Shea asks. He’s heard it’s a bit like fucking. It’s intimate like that._ _

__"Maybe?" Ryan says._ _

__Shea digs into his thigh; blunt fingernails through blue jeans hardly hurt._ _

__"It's more like fucking than being in love, but really it isn’t like either,” Ryan says._ _

__Ryan seems so calm. Shea wonders what Zach thinks of all this, if he's paying attention, if he thinks it's funny, if he thinks it's sad._ _

__Shea doesn’t think it’s funny. He doesn’t think it’s fair. He doesn’t know what he thinks it is. He can’t believe this is really happening._ _

__“I’m not resigning with the Preds, but we don’t have to break up,” Ryan says._ _

__Shea chokes. Isn’t that a nice idea — that Ryan can go off to wherever with Zach Parise, and Shea can cobble together a life without him._ _

__Life without Ryan: Shea has a hard time picturing it._ _

__“I don’t want to play in the East, it wouldn’t be too far,” Ryan says, like that makes things better. “We would still have the summer. Breaks. Nashville isn’t that far from Detroit — Minneapolis — wherever. We could do it.”_ _

__“No, I don’t think so,” Shea says. He doesn’t even know how that could work._ _

__Their relationship is built on playing together; partners on the ice, shared hotel rooms, pregame naps, getting home late from a road trip and falling into the same bed. They’ve survived the summers, but summers apart have always been a temporary break from their _real life,_ and the home they’ve made in Nashville, a home that Ryan is giving up._ _

__“We don’t have to figure this all out today,” Ryan says._ _

__“What is there to figure out?” Shea asks. He doesn’t know why they’re still talking. “You’re leaving.”_ _

__That’s it._ _

__That’s all of it._ _

__Ryan’s leaving, and he isn’t coming back. He isn’t Shea’s anymore. Maybe he never was._ _

__Ryan tries to talk some more, but Shea doesn’t have anything to say to him. Ryan gets tired of trying, and goes away. Ryan says he’ll call, that it isn’t over. That’s alright; Shea can ignore a phone call._ _

__They don’t need to talk about it._ _

__There isn’t anything to talk about._ _

__It’s over._ _

__

__**X** _ _

__Shea goes home for the summer. He spends time outside, sees his father and his brother. Sometimes he forgets that Ryan won’t be there when the season starts._ _

__He turns his phone off at the start of free agency. He doesn’t want to hear what happens._ _

__He turns it back on the third. Ryan still hasn’t signed anywhere. Neither has Parise. It takes till the Fourth of July. He sees the news when Ryan and Parise sign in Minnesota. He reads the headlines about friendship, and good midwestern boys playing together. Just the headlines, not the stories. He doesn’t want to make himself sick._ _

__He doesn’t think about it. He trains hard. He has his dad, his brother, his dog. He doesn’t need anything else._ _

__**X** _ _

__The Flyers send him an offersheet. It’s a lot of money, and it isn’t like there’s anything waiting for him in Nashville. Maybe what he needs is a fresh start._ _

__Nashville matches. Of course they do. They can’t lose two cornerstones over one summer. He’s the captain, and a leader, and now _unquestionably_ the best defenseman on the team. Nashville needs him._ _

__That should make him feel better than it does._ _

__He’ll be going back there in the fall. It’ll be just him and Dug in the house. Shea doesn’t know what he’ll do with all that empty space. (It might not be fair to call it that—empty space— instead of the places where Ryan used to be. Calling it something doesn’t make it hurt any less.) Maybe he’ll get another dog._ _

__**X** _ _

__Some people would say that it’s right for him to feel an empty space. He isn’t bonded. Until he has that he’ll never be fulfilled. Maybe they’re right._ _

__Shea never thought so. He had Ryan, and hockey, and a home. He was happy._ _

__Now he isn’t._ _

__If he had a bond then there would be someone who would never leave him, or if they did they would be in just as much pain. That would be nice. Misery loves company._ _

__Shea is miserable. He isn’t trying to deny it. He’s trying to keep going. Being miserable is useless. It won’t solve anything._ _

__He isn’t going to call Ryan._ _

__There isn’t anything to say._ _

__Shea doesn’t think about it._ _

__If he talked to Ryan it wouldn’t be to say,”I still love you, please come home.” That might be true, but it doesn’t matter. Ryan can’t love him enough to matter, and Ryan can’t come home._ _

__Shea never used to think about bonds, but now they’re always on his mind. It used to be that he couldn’t imagine needing someone so much that it hurt when they weren’t there. Now he knows what it feels like, or at least he knows something close._ _

__

____**Boo, Forever**  
Spinning like a ghost  
on the bottom of a  
top,  
I'm haunted by all  
the space that I  
will live without  
you.  
 _\- Richard Brautigan_

**Author's Note:**

> this is the original chatfic. I kinda like it better than the actual story? idk.
> 
> WHAT IF PARISE AND SUTER HAD A PLATONIC SOUL BOND WHERE THEY DON'T WANT TO BONE, BUT THEY'RE BEST FRIENDS AND IT HURTS WHEN THEY'RE APART, BUT THEY DEAL WITH IT BECAUSE OF HOCKEY, AND THEN RYAN GOES TO NASHVILLE AND MEETS SHEA AND FALLS IN LOVE, AND HE'S PRETTY HAPPY EXCEPT FOR HOW BEING APART FROM ZACH STILL HURTS, SO WHEN HE HAS A CHANCE TO PLAY WITH ZACH HE HAS TO TAKE IT, AND SHEA DOESN'T REALLY UNDERSTAND, BECAUSE "I THOUGHT YOU LOVED ME!" AND RYAN DOES, BUT HE'S TIRED OF HAVING THIS ACHE IN HIS BONES BECAUSE ZACH ISN'T THERE. AND IT'S ALL TERRIBLE, AND SHEA WINDS UP WITH A CONTRACT THAT WILL KEEP HIM IN NASHVILLE FOREVER, AND IT'S ALL SO FUCKING SAD.


End file.
